As the world focuses on battling the global COVID-19 pandemic, a major announcement may have slipped through the cracks. SWIFT, one of the top global payment services, is now in the race to battle Ripple, VISA and MasterCard in offering seamless account to account (A2A) payment services.

In a published media report by Finxtera on Apr. 1, SWIFT aims to connect the globe through its A2A platform in a frictionless and instant manner. The report in part reads,

“SWIFT will enable transactions to move instantly and frictionless from account-to-account anywhere in the world across the end-to-end payments chain. […]”

According to the release, SWIFT is looking to slightly switch its business model following the release of the A2A payment platform. SWIFT said,

“This ambitious platform expansion means SWIFT will support financial institutions to strengthen their positions in B2B payments and capture new volume in SME and consumer segments.”

While SWIFT is majorly focused on institutional business to business (B2B) transfers, the new platform will also focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – a key market for the blockchain-focused firm, Ripple and the digital asset XRP. SWIFT’s latest model to focus on SMEs changes the dynamism of the business,

“adding transaction volume in place of value as they include low value, relatively mundane payments alongside high value, systemically-important payments”.

The latest move was touted as the greatest development of SWIFT since launching back in the 70s by Andy Schmidt, the vice-president of the consulting firm, CGI. He said,

“Perhaps driven by the fact that as Swift is owned by the banks, the change of direction might enable the banks to take control of the interconnectivity of new instant payments schemes which are either live or rolling out all over the world.”

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